Ressentiment
by MakoMori
Summary: Ressentiment: The French word for Resentment, meaning a sense of hostility directed at that which one identifies as the cause of one's frustration, as an assignment of blame for one's jealousy; or in John's case, how he feels about Sherlock seeing Irene.


_Ressentiment:____The French for 'resentment', meaning a sense of hostility directed at that which one identifies as the cause of one's frustration, as an assignment of blame for one's jealousy._

Author's Note: I feel the need to emphasize this as many of the reviews I've received express the concerns of the parings (yes, plural) involved in this fanfiction. Yes, there are strong hints of **Sherlock/Irene, **but I will emphasize that _it is entirely one-sided, by which I mean Sherlock is incapable of returning her feelings. _The way he sees her is through a fascination because she is the only person he is incapable of reading.

-:- -:- -:-

_Ah._

"Sherlock, your phone."

"Mm, what about it?" His voice came muffled, restrained by the thick pillow his face was burrowed into. John had lost count of the hours he'd spent in the same position. His hand hung lifeless over the side of the couch, thumb caressing over the buttons of his phone.

"It's making that noise again," John observed.

With much strain the Detective lifted his head from the pillow to lock his unfocused eyes on the screen. _I'm not hungry. Let's have dinner._John swore to have caught the glimpse of a smile before Sherlock stashed the phone beneath the pillow cradled in his arms.

The _Ah_s were enough of a clue for even the great Watson to deduce the source of the text; but the way he knit his eyebrows together, pursed his lips - it was never enough of a hint for the great Sherlock Holmes.

"What are you doing, John?" It was a miracle enough that Sherlock acknowledged the activity John had spent the same amount of hours doing that Sherlock spent practically rigamortis.

"Blogging," The Doctor answered simply, the silence that followed filled with finger pads against keys.

"What on earth could you be blogging about?" The monotonous question was void of interest. Sherlock was on his back now, staring at his phone.

"Finishing the post about our last case." John was questioning his own reply, as Sherlock only gave a noncommittal noise in return. _I'm not hungry. Let's have dinner._Sherlock pocketed his phone, the ghost of a smile still lingering in his eyes. John peered over his computer at him. "No point in asking who it is."

"None whatsoever," Sherlock tented his fingers, feet on the coffee table as his eyes stared up at the ceiling from behind a veil of thought.

John paused, his teeth digging into his bottom lip. "What does she want?"

"Dinner. Boring."

Clearing his throat and pointedly hardening the press of his fingers to the keyboard, John replied, "Why not go? We have nothing to do otherwise. Do we?"

Sherlock's eyes fell on John, considering his word choice. "I was compiling blackmail on Mycroft."

"Well, that's not _something." _

With what almost sounded like a sigh of defeat, Sherlock sat up. "Alright." Barely a syllable left Watson's mouth before Sherlock was up, bustling about the flat to locate a pair of shoes. Without looking, John recognized the sound of objects skittering across the kitchen floor while Sherlock tried to locate something.

"It's hanging on the lamp," John caught ear of a pair of heavy footsteps to the scarf draping over the lamp. He was gone before John could mouth a genuinely sarcastic 'have fun.'

_Dinner. Now. Where? __  
><em>SH

_The Ivy. West End. _

-:- -:- -:-

"Do you have a reservation, sir?"

Giving the restaurant a quick scan, Sherlock bustled past the waiter, "half my party is already here."

The waiter bowed his head, making way for the Consulting Detective to start for the back - obvious, the woman most wanted for a scandal unknown to the general public would still find it necessary to avoid attracting attention.

Though it was hard not to, even as she sat in the corner, with a wine the same crimson as her dress. She stood, and he noticed the way her dress framed her hips, hugged down her thighs until they stopped too far above her knees. She embraced him, careful to let her long fingernails ghost above his collar to the hairs erect on the back of his neck.

Amused by his inability to react, she returned to her seat.

"I was beginning to think you had forgotten me," half her face was obscured by a compact mirror. Her mouth was agape, a ruby shade of lipstick gliding across her bottom lip as her half-lidded eyes gazed up through thick lashes at the man across from her.

"Do you always come here and wait for me to show up?" Sherlock was stiff. He gathered the loose fabric of his trousers near his knees in his fists.

"Of course I don't," a smack of her lips and the snap of her compact mirror. She dropped both her lipstick and her mirror into a small handbag in her lap. His eyes trailed down to her red dress, one size too small, but she looked comfortable in it. It matched her lipstick and her wine, contrasted her eyeliner and her smile. "I always make a reservation here, but this is the first time I've been. Actually," a smile - the devil's smile - sprouted across her lips (oh, but if looking at that smile was a sin, Sherlock was very much okay with going to hell), "I'm surprised you accepted my offer. Have you missed me?"

Swallowing, Sherlock looked over his nose at her. "I merely had nothing to do. And you? Nothing better to do than have dinner with the likes of me?"

Lifting her fork to bite the prongs between her teeth, though no food graced her lips, the Dominatrix met the Detective's gaze. "You could say I was... bored."

"So, it appears I am not the only one who becomes bored."

"Boredom is not an emotion that only frequents the great Sherlock Holmes, you know."

"You are the second person to tell me that." Holmes trailed off, lost in both her gaze and her thoughts.

"Who was the first?" Her gaze fell to her glass, lifting it and going without more than just a taste.

"I believe he is an acquaintance of yours," Sherlock's gaze hardened, and he caught a glimpse of something on Irene's face before she placed the wine glass a bit too hard back on the tablecloth.

"Ah," there was venom in her voice though she still smiled. "_That_acquaintance." She took another sip of wine, neither breaking eye-contact nor smile. Sherlock's smile was genuine, his eyes more intense with an almost childish nature - a child whose eyes locked on a candy. "If you think I invited you here to discuss my business with him, Mr. Holmes, then you came with the wrong intention."

"I did not come here with those intentions at all, Miss Adler," he answered coolly. The sweetness returned in her smile.

"Yet you haven't ordered anything. Not even a glass of water. I could buy you a glass of wine, Mr. Holmes." Before he could insist otherwise, the wine list was presented to him - he felt a touch of her fingertips before he took it. He felt almost as if he was under scrutiny when the waiter arrived and ordered a Pinot Noir under the harshest of looks.

The waiter left abruptly. "Am I keeping you from something?" Her elbows landed on the table, leaning forward on them for a better look at her dinner guest. "Am I keeping you from something?"

"Of course not," he looked almost insulted, though indeed, finding blackmail on his brother was important.

"Surely there must be a reason for you wanting to see me," Sherlock muttered, turning her own question upon her.

"Perhaps I just missed you."

"Am I really that alluring?"

"If that tastes better going down," she purred, the wine glass placed before Sherlock almost forgotten from the haze around their locked eyes. "But I'm certain that your ego can go without more stroking. You do live with Mr. Watson, after all."

"He is... flattering." Sherlock corrected, sampling his own glass of wine.

"Well," she leaned in further, her voice dropping to a whisper. "I think I have another glass of this wine, I might bend you over this table. Everyone would be watching, and as your poor ego gets shattered by all the diners looking on, I would have you begging me to release you." Sherlock's expression went blank, even as she drew back. "But I'm afraid one is all I will have tonight."

The white tablecloth went stained with wine Sherlock's sealed lips couldn't keep. He coughed, his napkin smearing across his bottom lip. "Do you... say these things like that to every man you take to dinner?"

"Oh, they're not always men, Sherlock."

The incredulity still on his face amused her. He blinked, "No. Right."

"Not all of them, no," she answered after silence. Her hand reached across the table to snatch his glass. "Do you mind?" But she did not wait for his consent, adorning the rounded glass with her lips, and Sherlock caught hint of her tongue running along the rim of it.

Seeing the look in his eyes, Adler lifted a foot free of her heel, gracing the length of his calf with her toes from heel to knee, pushing up his pant leg. He froze, thankful he hand was free of what she now had against her lips because it would surely be staining the carpet. His eyes darted to different places on the table - napkins: made of silk, silverware engraved with patterns similar to celtic knots-

A hum, then she placed it back on the table before her. Wetting the pad of her forefinger, she dragged it along the rim of the glass until it sang, completing exactly four circumferences before pushing the wine back to its owner. "Now I regret ordering the Cabernet."

He was careful not to allow his lips to touch the stain her lipstick left on his glass. It tasted slightly more bitter after she took it, yet somehow more sweet. "I think it best that you avoid that second glass of wine you spoke of."

Irene let out a small laugh, picking up the menu beneath her elbows and raising it between them like a barrier. "Maybe something to eat then?"

"I'm not hungry."

"Neither am I, let's eat." It bothered Sherlock that her eyes were now locked onto the pointless words of the menu. "Duck? Steak? Partridge on toast? Whatever you want. Nothing? Very well, then. I'm afraid I must be going now." She turned, motioned to the waiter, and took the small black booklet into her hands. "And I'm very sorry to say this, Sherlock dear, but you will start to feel light-headed very soon."

Sherlock locked onto the red fingernails wrapped around the pen, watching the elegant curvature of her signature that was an allusion to her figure, darkness lingering at the corners of his eyes. He barely registered the throbbing pain of his head coming into contact with the table. His hands grabbed at the tablecloth, upsetting the glass of wine near him.

"So sorry about this," he heard her voice slither into his ear as she painted her fingernails across his face. "I can't have you following me home just yet."

Her fingers kissed across his neck, and as her unfortunate dinner partner drifted into unconsciousness, she knelt down to leave the familiar pattern of her ruby red lips upon his cheek. "I bent you over the table already and I barely finished my first glass."

-:- -:- -:-

It was white that Sherlock first saw instead of the red he'd fallen asleep to. It hurt, but what he could deduce from the color and the steady beeping, he knew he was in a hospital long before his eyes opened. What he did not expect was the company of Watson looming above him and the Lestrade in the corner. Once Sherlock's consciousness became apparent, the room stirred once again. "M'head," his hand landed on his forehead, dragging down his face while his eyes still adjusted to the light.

"Side effect from hitting your head, I'm afraid," John's voice came, though his mouth moved in some sort of blur. "At least she had the decency to slip you a sleeping drug. She's probably doing you a favor on account of the fact that you haven't had a proper sleep in weeks."

"Sleep is boring," Sherlock bit back, his hand motioning to remove the IV drip injected into his arm. "Being here is boring. Come Watson, let's go home-" But the instant he took his first step off the bed, Holmes and the machinery around came crashing to the ground.

"Sherlock-" Watson tried, his warning too late as his flatmate laid flat against the white tile of the hospital. He helped the Detective to his feet, with much difficulty and retaliation, back onto the bed. "You should at least wait until you're well enough to walk."

"I'm fine," he barked. "Take me home!"

"The doctor said he was fine to leave when you arrived John," Lestrade chimed in. Sherlock rolled his eyes, glaring at the Detective Inspector without malice because he never realized how thankful he was that these men were so easy to read. Lestrade's fingers were too tight around the paper he held - he was worried, fretting over Holmes even though it was _obviously_just an insomnia medication. Zalepon. Obviously. Powerful, quick-acting, rarely prescribed. Adler obviously slipped it into his wine. If only she wasn't so infuriatingly difficult to read, he would have deduced that long before his first sip.

"Then take me home, John."

The influence of both the Detective Inspector and the Doctor was barely enough to convince Sherlock Holmes into the wheelchair. He insisted upon tucking his knees beneath his chin as John wheeled him down the corridor, Lestrade in their wake. The wheelchair remained on the curb as the two men assisted Sherlock into the back seat of a cab, where he collapsed against the far side window. "Do hurry up, John. I don't enjoy hospitals."

Regardless of his rather odd position against the window of the taxi, his eyes remained open, watching Watson the whole ride back to Baker Street and analyzing every forward-facing inch of his flatmate.

"Did you enjoy your date with Miss Adler?"

Sherlock opened his eyes, peering over his adjoined fingers at his flatmate sitting on the opposite couch with his laptop sitting on his lap.

"Oh for Christ's sake, you're not blogging about this, are you?"

"No, of course not. I'm just finishing up what I was working on today." John replied curtly. There was no denying that hint of disappointment in his tone from Sherlock avoiding his question. "I didn't have the chance to earlier because I had received a call from the Detective Inspector informing me that you had landed yourself in hospital. You can't tell me that someone else had had drugged you when clearly you were found in the restaurant that many witnesses reported seeing you with a woman."

"Well, that part was obvious. Do keep up-"

"-and that concludes this blog post." John interrupted with an ungentle shutting of his laptop lid. "I'm off to bed."

"It was very off seeing her in a normal context." Holmes' voice reached John before he even stood.

"You mean with clothing on?" John pried. "Must have been disappointing for you."

An expression of genuine confusion crept onto Sherlock's face. "Why would that be disappointing?"

Throwing his arms up in a shrug, Watson stayed silent for nearly a minute before he realized that answer was not acceptable to Sherlock. "I don't know, Holmes-" he only called Sherlock that when he was particularly insulted, as if the name 'Holmes' was an insult (he _did_share it with his brother) "-maybe because she was bare the first time you met her."

But his words frustrated Sherlock far more than did the name. "And you had a limp and a twitch to your left hand the first time I met you, yet I don't expect those things now."

At this, the Doctor's formerly twitching hand clenched into a fist tight enough to leave crescents on his palm from where his nails burrowed in. "And you were egotistical and vindictive the first time I met you, yet that hasn't changed at all."

Sherlock's eyes narrowed into dangerous slits. Still weary as he stood, he took a stance that could rival a military man's - that could rival John's. His voice was quiet, calculating. He was analyzing John's words as well as carefully choosing his own. "You're jealous of the only other person who's wanted to spend time with me." There was no denying the small upturn of his lips as John sputtered out the first of his reckless reply.

"And... sometimes I wonder why I even want to spend time with you!"

Those were not the words Sherlock had been expecting. "I know _precisely _why-" He started toward his flatmate, closing the distance between them until they were uncomfortably close as he spoke. "-you _want_to spend time with me, John Watson. I can read you like an open book. So enlighten me." He was so close that John could hear every unnecessary enunciation. "Why have you been jealous of me spending time with Miss Adler?"

"How could I possibly be jealous when I was the one who suggested that you take her up on her offer in the first place?" John replied evenly although his heart beat furiously in his rib cage.

"Because you wanted to see if I'd really go. Actually start a relationship with someone else. You wanted to do me some good, 'here make Sherlock go out with his friend, maybe he'll be less insufferable when he gets back.' Thought maybe you could fix me with a little care, push me toward being more sociable and I'd feel better." As if the distance between them could lessen, Sherlock took another step forward and scrutinized John with a slight tilt to his head. "But you regretted it the second I left the house, didn't you? Picturing me looking at someone else the way I look at you."

John was taken aback. His cheeks burned with the threat of red, anger and embarrassment pooling in his belly. His eyes stayed trained on Sherlock, unblinking, and his left hand leaped up to nervously swipe at the tip of his nose.

When Sherlock raised his hand, a tiny part of John's subconscious believed it was with malicious intent, but the soft touch to his cheek was more shocking than any pain-inflicting move could have. "Blood rushing to the cheeks, pupils dilating, gritting your teeth, left hand shaking, you've shifted your weight onto your good leg." He gestured to John's shaking hand. "Men have erectile tissue in their nose. It itches when they lie."

"And what of it?"

A smile that John had only witnessed after deducting an important clue in a case sprouted on Sherlock's face. It dawned on him that Sherlock was treating this like a case, and he wanted nothing of it. If Sherlock insisted on reading John's body language, then showing Sherlock his back could close the case. Instead, Sherlock only seemed to accept whatever challenge John presented. "Your words may say little, but your body language is practically screaming at me."

"And it is telling you to bugger off."

"Wrong. The muscles on your back are tensed. One could mistake your stance for military training, but it is proper response to the sensation of fear, causing you to stand straighter to the point of discomfort. I can see your hands clenching. They keep darting up to finger the back of your neck, indicating that you are hiding something.

"You're retreating, contemplating the natural animal instinct of the fight or flight response. Emphasis to the last two words of your sentence shows me that you are not committed to your response, not to mention that you would only use the phrase 'it is' instead of the appropriate contraction 'its' if you were deliberately lying. Your lips are pressed together, your chin slightly raised, meaning that you have the same amount of confidence in your response that I do.

"I touched your cheek earlier and took note of your body temperature which is slightly higher than normal, your heart rate is accelerating, your breathing is short and fast, as you are feeling emotional. The question is-" Sherlock was circling John now, until he was at John's front. "-what about?"

John's mouth fell open.

Sherlock joined his fingers and thumbs together, raising his head in a superior manner. "Allow me to guess - in fact, don't say anything, you'll throw off my concentration - The only reason that you suggested I see Irene Adler is because you wanted to test if I would go given the right persuasion. You were jealous the instant I walked out the door. I was curious as to why you deliberately suggested that _'we'_have dinner with her. Twice, in fact. You were testing my loyalty to you."

From this proximity it became glaringly apparent the height difference between John and his flatmate. Sherlock was glaring at him, a wickedness behind his dark eyes with a smile as a matching set.

"Maybe, John Watson, I was testing your loyalty to me. And your body language is telling me that you want me as much I do you."

Whatever last bit of common sense John had left was hanging on a fraying thread, but the animal instinct Sherlock spoke of earlier went against all truths his years in the military had taught him, and he let his feet carry him en route of his room. He was not willing to stand before this tyrant and fight a losing war. "You can't always have what you want."

Any words Sherlock had left abandoned him as easy as did the clues lingering on John's expression. "Wrong."

And it wasn't as if John had the intention to shoot- it was impulse, the fragment a of second his mind had to think, before he was forced to become acquainted with the wallpaper. Sherlock was surprisingly strong, his fingers pressed against John's wrists as he held the Doctor against the wall. Light streaked in from the bullet hole ruptured through the ceiling; its line of path ended at the gun held in John's twitching left hand, and Sherlock was pressing harder, a light of danger present in his eyes while he pinned his blogger beneath his unanticipated strength.

"You would not shoot me, John Watson, but the fact that you went for your gun first when you identified a threat only shows me that you've accepted the situation as hopeless. I could also say that it was triggered by anger, maybe? But I know better. I would deduce, ah..." his eyes traveled down the thread patterns of John's jumper to the frightfully apparent clue to his latter theory, another smile splitting his features. "...excitement?"

His head pivoted as he considered his flatmate. "By now you are internally debating." He was closer than John had ever remembered, close enough to actually feel the words accusing him. "You are trying to form the right words in your mind to convince me that this isn't actually what you want, although all evidence points to that being entirely false. The question now, John Watson, is whether you want to kiss me or not."

Sherlock's eyes widened even before he heard the sound of the gun meeting the floorboards. As Sherlock was surprising in his strength, John's stature did little to anticipate the swapping of their forms. All at once Sherlock found it was his back pressed against the wallpaper, his wrists bound by the hands of his blogger - but the sweet satisfaction in knowing his theories were right, as John held Sherlock against the wall with not only his hands, but the entirety of his mouth.

Sherlock's tongue worked slowly between John's lips, tasting a slight bittersweet flavor to the kiss - clearly John had finished the leftover Chinese in the fridge while Sherlock was out. He was trembling, nervous, a perfectly normal reaction, although he tried to restrain it and channel it into the fact that he was now carding his fingers through Sherlock's hair. From his mouth came noises Sherlock believed up until now that only his phone was capable of. They were involuntary, but not unwarranted, and Sherlock quickly learned how they increased with each amplification of pressure.

Then suddenly the pressure left him altogether - behind his head, against his frame, against his lips - and John Watson was no longer kissing his flatmate. His fingers still threaded into Sherlock's unruly hair, he caressed a lock of it between his thumb and forefinger. "I'm tired, Sherlock," he admitted, allowing his head to nest against Sherlock's chest.

The Doctor retreated towards his bedroom, taking the body previously warming Sherlock's with him. "John-"

Watson stopped just shy of his bedroom door.

"You said your bed doesn't have an experiment in it-" there was currently a collection of jars nesting in Sherlock's sheets, as the fridge and bathtub were occupied.

"Are you actually wanting to sleep?" there was no denying the incredulity in John's voice.

"You are, and I want to be near you." John looked and felt taken aback by Sherlock's answer; Sherlock merely stood, unmoved against the wall for fear he had said something wrong.

"Well come on then. I'm exhausted."

_Ah._

It took a second of Sherlock to recollect his thoughts in order to realize that the source of that sound did not come from the man tucked beneath his chin, but the phone stashed in his pocket. The glare of the backlight hurt his eyes. John stirred beneath his arms, though his eyes were undisturbed by the text.

(His heart still was, little did Sherlock know.)

_John's blog is HILARIOUS. I think he likes you more than I do._

Reading the words, however painful with eyes too used to darkness, Sherlock found it in himself to smile. John, still asleep as much to Sherlock's knowledge, caught the fading light of a smile on his flatmate's face as the phone's light died away and plunged the room into darkness again.

No matter how much John wanted Sherlock, and Sherlock wanted John...

...Sherlock still wanted Irene.

And in that regard, John's deduction was entirely incorrect.


End file.
